Tag Archives: walk

Falling into Winter

The fall caught me off guard. How about you?

The first time I really became aware of the seasonal shift was a few days ago when I noticed an familiar bird singing: a chickadee. I realized that I’d actually not heard a chickadee since I moved to Malden. Sketch of a black capped chickadeeSo I unfurled my Merlin Bird ID app, wondering who else was in town, and discovered that many of the birds I was listening to were quite different than the ones I’d heard last spring. House sparrows were still there, and Northern Cardinals and American Robins (English ones are different, y’all!) but now joined to the chorus were Blue Jays, Tufted Titmouse, Chipping Sparrows, White-breasted Nuthatch. Gone were Catbirds and Baltimore Orioles.

My neighbor and I chatted yesterday, as I went by on my morning walk with Boodie. He asked if I still walked three times a day in the middle of winter. I told him, yes, that’s why I had winter clothes, and we shared a laugh. But it made me think: how often do we give up moving because of bad weather? Stop going outside, and stay in controlled environments? Daily movement, whether you call it “exercise” or walking your dog or gardening, is essential for our health, in all senses. Winter, when flu begins to circulate, is exactly when we need to take even better care of our health, and yet that’s when many of us move less.

Movement is necessary, yet not sufficient. My neighbor walks regularly on the high school track. He’s rarely challenged by uneven pavement.

Yesterday on my walk, I tripped on the pavement and fell. No big deal: I fell well, got up and kept walking.

None of us can live forever in controlled environments. Electricity can fail. Shoelaces come untied and we trip over those. A tornado touches down (yes, even in Massachusetts). Pandemics arise.

Are you prepared for changing seasons? The changing seasons of your life, as well as of the earth?

How are you cultivating resiliency, and, better, anti-fragility? So that, whatever happens, you’re able not only to take care of yourself, but also others around you?


Today I’m sipping the first ginger tea of the season. Like to join me? Here’s my recipe, in another of my autumnal musings. (Scroll down to the bottom of the blog, and, if you like, send Finn Finn fond thoughts as you go.)

Anti-Fragile Walking Step by Step

Join us for this 2-day workshop

Andrew Gibbons working with a student.

Would you like to walk with greater ease and pleasure? Most of us walk with deeply grooved habits, repeating movements that lead to pain and stiffness. If we study these movements, we can create stability and integrity in our walk. With practice, we can clarify and ennoble an action we’ve done unconsciously our entire lives. Taught by Andrew Gibbons, GCFP.

In this 2-day course, you’ll raise your walking from an unconscious habit to an informed practice. You’ll emerge with a clearer perspective on how walking works and the art of transferring weight elegantly from leg to leg. You’ll learn what, why, and how to practice with greater specificity. Then walking can become a path to health. It can be your zen, your gym, and your joy. Limit: 25 participants. Room for 10 more as 5/1.

Who Benefits

  • Teachers & practitioners of somatic modalities: Feldenkrais Method®, yoga, Alexander Technique and more
  • Martial artists
  • Performing artists
  • Anyone who’d like to stand and walk with greater efficiency and pleasure

Feedback from Last Year

Instructor Andrew Gibbons works with a student in last year's workshop.The work Andrew has done is critical in our everyday life and applicable to the many other relative aspects of upright movement.

I better understand how my feet support my skeleton, and when properly organized and with mindful attention I can improve my organization. I learned just how much power I can have when my bones have proper support from down below.

Three Crucial Moments

The course focuses on three crucial moments in walking. These moments will set the parameters to test and improve your skeletal support, muscular efficiency, and balance.

As a participant you will learn:

  1. How walking is learned, and how learning is walked.
  2. Why your soft tissue cannot survive a disorganized skeleton.
  3. To see and sense shearing forces that poor walking creates, and learn how to move better by choice.
  4. Key relationships in the foot, ankle, and knee that every good walk maintains.
  5. “Do-anywhere” practices that help you tune your walking balance and maintain it throughout the day.
  6. How to use observational skills to improve by observing other people and yourself.
  7. Awareness Through Movement® practices that deepen your understanding and skill.

Instructor Andrew Gibbons is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teacher in New York City. He’s spent the last 8 years uncovering the moments in walking that tell us the most about our posture and self organization. In his private practice, he teaches the humans of New York how to organize themselves better for the second half of life than they did for the first. Andrew has been a Feldenkrais Teacher since 2003. Now an assistant trainer, he’s on the staff of Jeff Haller’s IOPS Academy, a graduate program for Feldenkrais teachers in NYC and Seattle.

SCHEDULE
Saturday & Sunday, June 2 & 3, 10am-4 pm.

REGISTRATION
Advance: $295.
Late: $325 After May 1.
At door: $350.
Register on Brown Paper Tickets.
Or send a check payable to “Dallas Feldenkrais” to: 3515 Cedar Springs Rd., Dallas, TX 75219

Anti-Fragile Walking Step By Step

Feldenkrais teacher Andrew Gibbons

Andrew Gibbons, GCFP

Would you like to walk with greater ease and pleasure? Most of us walk with deeply grooved habits, repeating moments that lead to pain and stiffness. If we study these moments, we can create stability and integrity in our walk. With practice, we can clarify and ennoble an action we’ve done unconsciously our entire lives. Taught by Andrew Gibbons, GCFP.

In this 2-day course, you’ll raise your walking from an unconscious habit to an informed practice. You’ll emerge with a clearer perspective on how walking works and the art of transferring weight elegantly from leg to leg. You’ll learn what, why, and how to practice with greater specificity. Then walking can become a path to health. It can be your zen, your gym, and your joy. Limit: 25 participants. Room for 3 more as of 3/21.

Andrew Gibbons working with a student.The course focuses on three crucial moments in walking. These moments will set the parameters to test skeletal support, muscular efficiency, and balance.

As a participant you will learn:

  1. How walking is learned, and how learning is walked.
  2. Why your soft tissue cannot survive a disorganized skeleton.
  3. To see and sense shearing forces that poor walking creates, and learn how to move better by choice.
  4. Key relationships in the foot, ankle, and knee that every good walk maintains.
  5. “Do-anywhere” practices that help you tune your walking balance and maintain it throughout the day.
  6. How to use observational skills to improve by observing other people and yourself.
  7. Awareness Through Movement® practices that deepen your understanding and skill.

Participants will receive a set of four Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement lessons:  “Walking with the Ground.”

Instructor Andrew Gibbons is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teacher in New York City. He’s spent the last 8 years uncovering the moments in walking that tell us the most about our posture and self organization. In his private practice, he teaches the humans of New York how to organize themselves better for the second half of life than they did for the first. Andrew has been a Feldenkrais Teacher since 2003. He’s on the staff of Jeff Haller’s IOPS Academy, a graduate program for Feldenkrais teachers in NYC and Seattle.

COST: Late $325 (by Apr. 5); At door $350 (if space permits). Students $200.

Register on Brown Paper Tickets. Or send a check payable to “Dallas Feldenkrais” to:
P.O. Box 797503
Dallas, TX 75379